Unmasking the Truth in Gutiérrez Alea’s La Utima Cena
By Edward Tabor
“Countries of Europe listen to me again. Your slaves don’t need either your generosity or your advice to break the sacrilegious yoke that oppresses them. Nature speaks more powerfully than philosophy or self interest.†(Diderot qtd in Aravamudan 301)
[1] Numerous interpretations of Gutiérrez Alea’s film The Last Supper (La Ultima Cena) focus on the foolish and ridiculous behavior of the Count. Yet, such actions although apparently eccentric are also an attempt to quell the passions of slaves by allowing them to have a moment of freedom. Slaveholders in the 18th and 19th centuries often felt such moments were necessary to keep peace among their slaves (1). When the Count allows twelve slaves to sit at his table, he appears to be breaking the boundaries of a simple holiday. A cursory look at the film may produce the belief that the freedom granted to the slaves may indeed inspire the rebellion of the following day. Certainly, this moment of sanctioned freedom appears to become the basis of revolution in the film. However, instead of inspiring hope in the slaves, the Count actually acts to take it away --as we see in his mock emancipation of Pascual. For the Count, freedom of slaves is a nonexistent possibility and doesn’t exist outside of his dinner table.
[2] Often moments of festivity are pronounced as a temporary Saturnalia in which the powers of the authority allow moments of carnival reversals to act as a “safety valve for passions†that might “otherwise direct to revolution†(Holquist xviii). As alternate interpretation of carnival reversal, Michael Holquist describes Mikhail Bakhtin’s findings:
Carnival [. . .] is not [. . .] an impediment to revolutionary change, it is revolution itself. Carnival must not be confused with mere holiday or, least of all, with self-serving festivals fostered by governments secular or theocratic. The sanction for carnival derives ultimately not from a calendar prescribed by church or state, but from a force that preexists kings and to whose superior power they are actually deferring when they appear to be licensing carnival. (xviii)Based upon these types, there are two elements of carnival in Gutiérrez Alea’s film, the sham of sanctioned carnival organized by the Count, and the moments at which internal forces of the slaves actually reverse and dominate authority. From the beginning of the film, the actual inspiration for rebellion is present in the slave, Sebastian. He attempts escape without the inspiration of the Count’s sanctioned carnival dinner, and his desire for freedom is deeper and more powerful than any temporary reversal. It is Sebastian’s desire for freedom that gives meaning to the scene of the reenactment of the Last Supper and ultimately unmasks the Count’s deception. The key scene comes at the end of Sebastian’s Yoruba tale of “Truth and Lie.†At this decisive moment, 1:06:35 “Truth Finds a Head,†Sebastian raises a pig’s head to his own face to demonstrate the true countenance of the Count as well as the false nature of the banquet. This symbolic unmasking reverses the hierarchy of the plantation giving Sebastian the place of power.
[3] The symbolic action of lifting the roasted pig’s head is framed in a complex of images and stories that culminate in this moment of truth. Numerous dialogues ensue at the Count’s table concerning the nature of unhappiness in a black slave, the impossibility of freedom, the loss of paradise, and the importance of suffering in traditional Christianity. These dialogues exist under the authority of the Count who allows the slaves to voice opinions but always takes the last word for himself -- thus crystallizing the dialogue in favor of his imperialist proslavery interpretation. He is even able to take Sebastian’s ultimate act of insult -- spitting in his face -- as a moment to elevate his authority, as even Christ suffered such things. The Count, a self-proclaimed Christ and Socrates, maintains a dominant and authorial voice throughout the banquet allowing him to alter the dialogue to his own ends. Clearly the heavy authorial hand of the Count makes the dialogue as false as the banquet itself. Bakhtin argues that “the dialogic means of seeking truth is counterposed to official monologism, which pretends to possess a ready-made truth†(Bakhtin, author’s italics, 110). Instead of true dialogue, the Count attempts to curb the slaves’ desire for freedom with a story about St. Francis’s desire for suffering and a “narcissistic soliloquy about the function of slavery as a punishment for Original Sin (the standard Catholic justification, going back to St. Augustine of Hippo in the 5th century)†(Downing 292). His speech proclaims his authority on the subject and turns the seemingly free dialogue into a monologue on the “truth and necessity†of slavery. In fact, one of the Count’s most memorable exclamations denotes his belief that he holds the one truth, that God had ordained slavery -- “It is God’s will, God’s punishment!†(2)
[4] In contrast to the monologic truth that the Count preaches, Sebastian maintains silence. Except for his moment of physical rejection -- certainly more powerful than words -- Sebastian appears passive to the Count’s sermons. In fact, he doesn’t even respond when the Count reverses the act of spitting from an insult into a moment of self-glorification. Sebastian waits until the Count falls into a drunken sleep to make his rebuttal to the official proclamation of truth. In a sense, this shows Sebastian’s subversive nature, but in a symbolic manner, we may see this as the Count’s inability to hear another side to the argument; he must be paralyzed before another voice can offer a contrary statement.
[5] Sebastian’s tale reverses the Count’s command of the speech at the table. Not only does he speak his own opinion but he does so by using a counter mythology. Sebastian’s devotion to West African religion represents a true alternate voice in the dialogue, and it reverses the self-proclaimed authority of Catholicism in the film. Sebastian’s tale of Olofi and the creation of Truth and Lie is told in a fable style in a somewhat similar method to the Count’s stories. The difference in Sebastian’s tale lies in the ambivalent nature of the message. For example, one line of the parable states: “Olofi made well all the things in the world: he made truth, and he also made the lie.†The Yoruba belief about correspondence of positive and negative aspects of creation flies in the face of the Count’s traditional Catholicism. Sebastian has reversed the fables of Adam and Eve as well as St. Francis and has asked his fellow slaves to look closer into the meaning of these stories. The most poignant part of the Yoruba tale describes the changing of heads between Truth and Lie; they fight, and Truth becomes careless allowing Lie to cut off his head (3). It is at this moment during the tale, that Sebastian uses the pig’s head to illustrate the deceit of the Count. This scene also clearly reverses the hierarchy of the plantation by mocking the top of the order showing him to be like the lowest of beasts. Gutiérrez Alea crafts this moment in a way that, not only the language changes the reins of power, but the cinematography leaves the viewer little question regarding which character speaks the truth.
[6] The simple camera work of the scene heightens the contrast of Sebastian’s poignant fable to the deceptive twists of the Count’s Christian morality tales. Sebastian remains motionless as he speaks -- only using the symbol of the pig’s head as a sharp and unforgettable symbol. His stationary position contrasts the Count, who often paces the room or wildly gesticulates with his hands as he preaches to the slaves. Sebastian also speaks in a calm steady voice, unlike the Count who shouts his message to the slaves. Sebastian’s mode of delivery also speaks of his firm grounding in truth and commitment; his words and actions are pure and unadulterated by overblown gestures. Moreover, Sebastian’s only movement during his tale specifically illustrates his moral, yet he leaves his audience to understand and participate in the meaning. His speech elicits a free argument and dialogue amongst the slaves rather than somber silence (or sometimes ironic laughter that tends to hide the slaves’ reaction) that follows the Count’s words. During the scene the camera pans to Sebastian’s hands imitating the character of Truth searching for his head. The shot cuts off Sebastian’s head thus presenting him as the embodiment of Truth in the tale. The close-up on his hands also reflects Gutiérrez Alea’s motif of “sacred hands,†which is most strikingly presented in the opening scenes of the film. In that very symbolic scene, the camera focuses on a detail of a fresco in which the hand of a saint -- in an act of self-mortification -- grasps a thorny branch. Here Sebastian’s hands, in symbolic manner, grasp not the thorns of suffering, but a pig’s head, a symbol of lies and deception. (4)
[7] In this instant, Gutiérrez Alea effectively reverses all of the Christian theology and mythology previously presented in the film. Every image that focuses on hands committing actions of piety and holiness, the viewer may now see unmasked as a lie. In fact, the pantomime of Sebastian’s hands groping over an exquisitely set table first present the idea that the figures of authority are actually blind to the truth and seek any possible excuse or lie to defend it. As Sebastian’s hands grasp the pig’s head, he states “he suddenly blunders into the head of Lie,†and the shot highlights his hands greedily grasping the back of the head. The intensity of the moment so shocks the slave sitting behind the head that he visibly jumps. If the audience doesn’t feel the shock of truth, the meaning hits home as the camera focuses on the gory eyeless pig’s head. Sebastian stands as he ends his story, placing the Pig’s head in front of his own. By standing he mocks the authority of the Count, who often stands while he speaks. However, he is also doing something clearly revolutionary. He takes the position of the Count by relating a fable that unmasks the Count as a liar and a deceiver. He momentarily becomes the Count by gazing on all the slaves through the empty eyes of the roasted pig. The lighting of the scene remains dim and simulates the light of candles, thus when Sebastian stands, he is illuminated against the emptiness of a shadowy black doorway. Here he stands alone as an independent voice of freedom, poised not against the sumptuous walls of the dining room but appearing to rise to the height of truth in the cosmos. Paradoxically, he reverses the authority by putting on the Count’s mask of lies. Of course, Sebastian shows the mask while the Count figuratively hides it behind his fine clothes and kind actions.
[8] The complexity of the film creates a common misinterpretation that the Count’s saturnalian behavior incites and empowers the slaves. Davis, for example appears to make the argument that the sanctioned festivities allow the reversal to take place: “For some, the topsy-turvy experience is blowing off steam, to be followed by a return to normal order. But for others, the reversal can flow over into the regular life as the memory of liminal openness changes expectations†(66). While Davis may be generally correct, she fails to see Sebastian’s role as a revolutionary in the first scenes of the film. In fact, his escape is juxtaposed with the religious piety expressed in the scene of the fresco. It is true that the banquet gives Sebastian the opportunity to speak, something he didn’t appear to have previously, but he is only able to speak when the authority figure of the Count drifts off to sleep. Hence any freedom given at the dinner is false -- at least while the Count is conscious. Gutiérrez creates a scene that appears to give the power to the authority of the Church and the Count, which sanctions a little blowing off of steam, but it is Sebastian who finds the loophole in the plan.
[9] The moment of freedom that Sebastian enjoys allows him to expose and reverse the official truth of the plantation and bring forth the folk-truth of West African religion. Clearly Gutiérrez gives the power of revolution to African thought -- Christianity can only symbolize revolution in the death and resurrection of Jesus, while African religion can shape reality. Scholars, like Tim Watson, have noted that although numerous slave rebellions began during or after Christian holidays, it was not Christian thought that gave them the impetus to rebel. In fact, the Count’s message at the dinner table is not one of freedom but one of oppression. Looking at the historical influence of the film, we find that the anecdote that inspired the film states that the slaves “took advantage of the prestige they thus acquired in their fellow-slaves’ eyes to organize a mutiny and burn down the mill†(Fraginals qtd. in Mraz 113). This statement gives the power to the Count, who in turn empowers certain slaves by raising them up. Yet Gutiérrez Alea follows a more historically accepted reasoning for slave rebellion, the influence of African religions. Laurent Dubois points out that the Haitian revolution began on Sunday August 21, 1791, when Thomas Boukman, a slave and practitioner of Obeah, began the first uprising. Boukman reportedly inspired the revolution by saying, “The god of the white man calls him to commit crimes; our god asks only good works of us. But this god who is so good orders revenge! He will direct our hands; he will aid us. Throw away the image of the god of the whites who thirsts for our tears and listen to the voice of liberty†(Boukman qtd. in Dubois 100). Like Boukman, Sebastian in Gutiérrez Alea’s film unmasks the power structure of the Christianized New World by reinvigorating the power of African religions amongst slaves.
Works Cited
Aravamudan, Srinivas. Tropicopolitans. Durham: Duke UP, 1999.
Bakhtin, Mikhail. Problems of Dostoyevksy’s Poetics. Ed. and Trans. Caryl Emerson. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1984.
Davis, Natalie Zemon. "Ceremony and Revolt: Burn! and The Last Supper." Slaves on Screen: Film and Historical Vision. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2000. 41-68.
Downing, John. "Four Films of Tomas Gutierrez Alea." Film and Politics in the Third World. New York: Praeger, 1988. 279-301.
DuBois, Laurent. Avengers of the New World; The Story of the Haitian Revolution. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard UP, 2004.
Holquist, Michael. Prologue. Rabelais and His World. By Mikhail Bakhtin. Trans. Helene Iswolsky. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1984. xiv-xxiii.
Mraz, John. "Recasting Cuban Slavery: The Other Francisco and The Last Supper." Based on a True Story: Latin American History at the Movies. Ed. Donald R. Stevens. Wilmington: S.R. Books, 1997. 106-22.
Tise, Larry. Proslavery: A History of the Defense of Slavery in America, 1701-1840. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1987.
Watson, Tim. Caribbean Culture and British Fiction in the Atlantic World, 1780-1870. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2008.
Williams, Cynric. A Tour Through the Island of Jamaica; From the Western to the Eastern End in the Year 1823. London: Hunt and Clark, 1826.
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(1) In Cynric Williams' account of Jamaica, a planter remarks to Williams of the danger of interfering with these slave festivities and holidays: “Mr. Graham told me there would be a rebellion in the island if any attempt was made to curtail the enjoyments of the blacks, even on religious principles†(10).
(2) This proclamation mirrors the often referenced 1701 defense of slavery, written by the Massachusetts Justice John Saffin: “By no means an equalitarian, Saffin argued that God had intentionally ‘set different Orders and Degrees of Men in the World’ intentionally’ and that any push toward equality would be ‘to invert the Order that God had set.’ Phrasing a statement that was repeated endlessly in proslavery literature [. . .] Saffin wrote that God had ordained ‘some to be High and Honourable, some to be Low and Despicable; some to be Monarchs, Kings, Princes and Governours, Masters and Commanders, others to be Subjects, and to be Commanded; Servants of sundry sorts and degrees, bound to obey; yea some to be born Slaves, and so to remain during their lives’ (Tise 17).
(3) John Downing argues that his “brief fable of stark intensity which in a mere moment blows away the Count’s rambling miasma†(292).
(4) One cannot help but wonder if Gutierrez Alea is not alluding to the Soviet director Andrzeg Wajda’s use of a pig’s head roast, in Siberian Lady Macbeth, to symbolize the guilt of Sergei. The influence of Soviet cinema is widely known in Gutierrez Alea’s film, and it is likely he viewed Wajda’s film. He may also be referencing the unclean animal of Judaism. In the Gospels of Matthew (8:13) and Mark (5:13) Jesus sends a demon into a herd of 2000 pigs. In a biblical interpretation Sebastian would be associating the Count with the trickery of Satan.
